Advantages of different use years

I am close to deciding on purchasing at SSR and I see lots of questions about use year and the various months. As a new buyer is there any advantage/disadvantage to a particular use year or is this only important for add-ons?

If it is only an issue with add-ons, is there a particular use year that becomes available more often than others?

Use year is pretty much meaningless except for one situation, canceling. If you have a Feb use year and make a December vacation and need to cancel it in October or November, you banking possiblities are gone and you only have till Feb to use the points.

If you have a September use year and need to cancel the same vacation, you are still well within any banking deadlines and even a few months to decide since you still have plenty of time to use them this year.

You want a use year 0-6 months before your usual vacation time.

If your vacation times change, use year is meaningless.

Its also likely that over thirty plus year that you vacation habits will change, again making use year meaningless.

There is at least one other situation where use-year is potentially relevent...If you want to use the most points for a single vacation possible it is to use 2 years at the very end of a use year and 2 years at the very beginning of a use year or 4 years worth of points... Example Feb Use year-use 2 years to book up days thru the end of January- then Feb1 and beyond use the next 2 years points---with even small contracts this can translate into a really long vacation--or a bigger unit than you might otherwise afford...so you would want your use year to coincide with such plans..also some months that would go a lot farther than others.

There are several ways use year comes into play but they are all variations on the above issues. If one has points they want to rent, use year can be very important. In general, buy a use year that occurs 6 months or less from when you usually travel. If you have a defined time you usually vacation, get a use year as close as possible preceeding that time. If you have several times you tend to travel, average it out or concentrate on the times that are most likely to change shorter notice. The idea is to give yourself as many options as possible if you have to change or cancel. That usually means at least 6 months before the end of the use year so you can bank any points that are elligible and as long a time as possible to reuse (or rent) banked or borrowed points which can't be banked.